Men's crew advances to semifinals at ECAC Championships
WORCESTER, MA – The men’s varsity crew raced to a
second place finish in their preliminary heat in day one at the
ECAC National Invitational to advance to tomorrow’s semifinal
races. A tailwind favored the earlier women's heats with fast
times, but the men’s crews raced into a southeast headwind
which made for slower times.
The men’s varsity eight event featured four heats with the
top three boats in each heat advancing to the semifinals. The
first heat was a tight race with top ranked Virginia squeezing out
a win over Ithaca. WPI and UNH battled for the third and
final qualifying spot with WPI taking third by .273 seconds.
The top four boats finished within 2.2 seconds of each
other. In the second heat, perennial New England power
Trinity College separated itself from the field and took an easy
win over Cal San Diego and Wesleyan. Orange Coast, Marist,
and Bates advanced to the semifinal heat from the third heat.
In the fourth and final heat of the day, Williams, seeded second in
their heat, lined up with top ranked Michigan, UC-Davis, Hobart,
UMass, and St. Lawrence. Hobart moved out to an early lead,
but Michigan charged back to take the lead, with Williams moving
into second, overlapping with Michigan at the 1,000 meter mark and
on the bow ball of Hobart and UC-Davis. The third and fourth
place boats took advantage of the southeast headwind that was
hampering the boats in lanes 1 and 2 made a late charge in the
third 500 meters of the race to force a competitive and close final
500 meters of the race, but Michigan and Williams held first and
second place, three seconds apart, with UC-Davis taking the final
qualifying spot, about a second behind Williams and only 0.2
seconds over Hobart.
Head Coach Peter Wells was pleased with the efforts of the
men’s team this season and happy with their race this
afternoon. “This season has been about meeting
challenges. Last year we couldn’t break through the
challenges and we never improved and didn’t get to a
different level. Before the Little Three’s this year
[against Wesleyan], I told them that this was a pivotal race and
that they had a chance to break that barrier and they did. This
ECAC race is a big deal for them, every race is absolutely
brutal. They were a little tight today because they were
nervous about making the A and B semifinal, but tomorrow we have a
great opportunity. The attitude of the program is great, the
energy of the men’s team has been great and good things have
come their way because they have a great attitude.”
Tomorrow the men will race in lane three against Orange Coast, UVA,
Bates, WPI, UC-San Diego in their semifinal. The men’s
2V, 3V, and novice boats will race tomorrow in morning preliminary
heats and afternoon final races.
